


Baby, Let's Play House

by RosalindBeatrice



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode: s06e15 Arcadia, F/M, Fake Marriage, First Time, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Smut, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Shameless Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-08-21 00:30:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16566122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosalindBeatrice/pseuds/RosalindBeatrice
Summary: Mulder's feeling domestic.





	1. Chapter 1

  
  
He’d been flirting with her for hours, even before they stepped out of the car that had taken them to the Falls at Arcadia. He was stupidly excited about the stay. Maybe they’d watch a movie and eat popcorn in the same bed together. Maybe he’d catch a glimpse of her in her satin pajamas. Maybe she’d want to play house.  
  
He flirted and teased all the way into the house, reveling in the new liberties he could take as a pseudo-husband. He grabbed her around the shoulder and squeezed her close as their new neighbors crowded around them. The charade thrilled him. It was like marriage lite; he was getting a taste of the real thing and he loved it. Scully, however, did not seem convinced. She was all business when they closed the front door behind him, going straight for the UV lamp so she could lay down some luminol and search for bloodstains. She proceeded to the video camera without breaking stride when she found the lamp had broken in the tumble the box had taken over their inept neighbor’s shoulder. Mulder didn’t feel like working at all. He wanted to enjoy being shacked up while it lasted.  
  
Scully wasn't having it, though. "You're not taking this seriously," she said.  
  
"I'm taking it seriously," he insisted, from his perch on the kitchen counter. "I just don't understand why we're on it. It's our first case back on the X-Files. This isn't an X-File."  
  
"Sure it is!" said Scully. "It's unexplained. What do you want, aliens? Tractor beams?"  
  
“Admit it,” he blurted in response, when Scully rolled her eyes. “You just want to play house.”  
  
He wanted his accusation to be true. He wanted to sit down and have orange juice and bacon for breakfast with her, peck her lips before she left for work, rub her shoulders when she got home from her long day, and fuck her into oblivion before bed. The latter thought may or may not have been what caused him to crack a rather bold joke about making a honeymoon video when Scully was filming the home’s interior for their investigation.  
  
His remark about playing house, though, just earned him one of her patented, skeptical stares, the don’t-fucking-patronize-me ones that he loved and loathed in equal measure. The doorbell rang and she turned on her heel to answer it.  
  
“Woman! Get back in here and make me a sandwich!” he said to her retreating back. She gave him that look again with a suppressed smile, stripped off her latex gloves, and flung them at his face.  
  
“Did I not make myself clear?” he said, but she was off to answer the door.  
  
The caller ended up being one of their peculiar neighbors, the fat one who had accidentally tossed the box with the UV light over his shoulder. He was gripping a box of what appeared to be a forty-piece china set to replace theirs. Mulder watched him from the kitchen. The neighbor scuttled off the doorstep as soon as Scully began to probe (not very subtly, he thought) about the missing-in-action previous owners.  
  
“These people are strange,” she said, struggling into the kitchen with the box and dropping it on the counter.  
  
“Understatement of the year.” Mulder swung his legs and tapped his heels against the kitchen cabinets, thinking. He thought a cult was the most likely explanation, especially after having just witnessed the behavior of over a dozen neighbors determined not the break the tiniest, most piddling clause in the Arcadia HOA book.  
  
“Well, at least you’ll be in good company for however long this lasts,” Scully said, opening a cabinet and taking a stack of plates out of the box.  
  
“Oh, I’m strange?” he said, tapping his heels. “Spooky, maybe? I’m not the one who set this gig up just so I could play house with my partner.”  
  
“I can play house just fine,” Scully said, sliding the plates into place in place. ”You’re just not going to get a sandwich out of it is all.”  
  
“What do I get out of it?” he said, anticipating another sarcastic answer.  
  
Scully closed the cabinet doors and walked toward him. Did he detect a sashay or was he imagining it? She paused in front of him.  
  
“Something better than a sandwich,” she said. He tried to read the look on her face, but failed. He couldn’t tell if she was joking.  
  
“Well, I don’t want a sandwich. I was kidding,” he said. He was starting to feel uneasy. She had definitely just moved a couple inches closer to him.  
  
“I’m not offering to make you a sandwich,” she said. “You can make  _me_  a sandwich after I’m done.”  
  
Done with what? His comprehension hadn’t quite caught up to her movements. Why were both her hands on his knees? She was bringing her face closer to his and his heart was beating eighth notes.  
  
“What are you doing?” he said. Actually, said would be an exaggeration. He choked it.  
  
“Playing house,” she said, arching an eyebrow as if it was obvious. Her hands pressed his knees wider and she moved herself forward into the space. All of his neurons snapped to attention with the anvil-dropping realization this was a fucking seduction. Somehow he had goaded her into seducing him. He couldn’t believe it.  
  
He must have gotten a look on his face then, because Scully’s expression changed and she was her usual self for a moment. “You’re okay?” She looked concerned.  
  
“I am 100% okay with whatever you’re doing, Mrs. Petrie.” He was pretty sure his heart had moved onto sixteenth notes now.  
  
This fact was confirmed a couple seconds later when she placed the flats of her fingers on his groin and rubbed. This was honest-to-god happening and it wasn’t like anything he’d pictured in his fantasies. For one, she hadn’t removed a stitch of clothing. For another, she wasn't wearing a see-through negligee or a garter belt with no underwear beneath, but that godawful grandmotherly cardigan. Amazingly, it didn’t matter.  
  
“Sure it’s okay?” she said, catching his eye. God, he wanted to kiss her so bad, but he couldn’t seem to move. He didn’t want to shatter the spell and ruin any part of what she was planning. So he nodded to her question instead, not trusting his voice. Her fingers rounded to the hardening shape of him now, stroking up and down. He wonder if his eyes were as big as they felt.  
  
“Your belt, Mr. Petrie,” she said. He’d barely noticed that she’d moved her left hand up and was now tugging at the object in question.  
  
He probably broke a Guinness World Record unfastening it, not yet able to comprehend that the longtime object of his desire, Dana Scully, was interested in the contents of his preppy navy-blue slacks. Scully’s expression as she inserted her fingers into the slit in his boxers and drew his dick out was one he hadn’t seen before in their six years together--one that he’d definitely be using as fantasy material for the foreseeable future. He groaned. He couldn’t help it. How many times had he imagined this? Shit, how many times had he imagined it on the drive to Arcadia alone? So far Scully was just holding him there, her touch exquisitely light and somehow so very Scully. She looked down at him in her hand, then back up to his eyes. “You’re big,” she said. She was developing the prettiest little spots of color on her upper cheeks. He couldn’t think of a single halfway decent wisecrack, but did think fleetingly of asking her not to talk like that anymore. If she kept it up, he wouldn’t last more than two minutes. It was fine if she knew that he felt something for her, but not so cool if she found out that he adored her so much a few dirty words were enough to drive him over the edge.  
  
Then Scully began to move her hand up and down, eyes boring into his, and there were no linear thoughts in his head anymore. He’d never guessed that she would be this naughty, this confident. The sensation of her tiny hand stroking the length of him was just—goddamn, it was unbelievable was what it was. He felt stupid and slack-jawed with pleasure, and his skin seemed to have heated ten degrees. This was happening. She was jerking him off in on a kitchen counter while they were on a case pretending to be married. If the fake thing was this good, then what would the real thing be like?  
  
“Please keep doing that,” he said, eyes snapping open when her hand stilled. He hadn’t been aware of closing them.  
  
“If I took orders from you, I’d be making a sandwich right now,” she said, smiling. Her eyes were dancing.  
  
He groaned again as she withdrew her hand, this time from disappointment. He was aching, pitiful in his need.  _Don’t mind me, Scully, I’m just going to explode here_.  
  
Scully grinned and took a half step back. Then her hand was on him again and she was bending her head, and he realized in the split second before she did it what she was about to do.  
  
“Oh my god,” was all he could manage, as her mouth sank down on him. “Oh my god."  
  
He wanted to grab hold of something to steady himself. The countertop didn’t seem to be solid enough. When he opened his eyes again, his dick was emerging from her lips and she was licking the underside. It was a sight he never in a hundred years thought he’d be lucky enough to see. With a sight like that, he didn’t need any supplementary fantasy about her breasts or any other sweet et cetera. It was more than enough.  
  
“Mmm,” she said, sinking her mouth on him again, and that was his undoing.  
  
“I’m going to come, I’m going to come,” he rasped, trying to push her head away.  
  
He grabbed himself and her hand was right on top of his, pumping him to conclusion. At the last moment before his orgasm struck, he shook off her hand, covered it with his, and returned both to his dick. “Oh shit, I’m coming, I’m coming,” he said. A cry tore throat his throat and echoed through the big empty house. He came like he hadn’t masturbated in months. Spasm after glorious spasm after glorious spasm rocked him as he and Scully squeezed his dick. He felt delirious with happiness. “Oh Scully. Oh my god.”  
  
He let himself sink backward and his neck struck the lip of the counter. He was dizzy as he stared up at the ceiling. He’d made a huge fucking mess all over his ridiculous collared pink Lacoste shirt and his hands. Scully’s too. As the aftershocks of his initial orgasm shuddered through him, a feeling of embarrassment rolled over him like a cold fog. The whole interlude had lasted all of two minutes and he couldn’t even blame dirty talk. He sighed and put his hands over his face, forgetting that they were spotted with come.  
  
“I am pathetic,” he said. “And I just smeared come on my face.” He couldn’t open his eyes and face Scully.  
  
She laughed close to his ear, above him. Hands touched his and removed them from his face. He looked up and Scully was looking down on him, on the opposite side of the counter now. She leaned over and gave him a big, hungry kiss, making that  _mmm_  noise in her throat again. Even though he’d already come and his dick was lying limp on his lower abdomen, it was still mind-blowing.  
  
“I’ll take it as a compliment,” she said. “That was fun." She straightened up. "It was okay that I did that, right?” She brushed his cheek with the side of her thumb.  
  
He was stunned that Scully felt a modicum of something for him, even if it wasn’t anything more than just animal lust. She kissed him again, long and languorous. “You can do it any time you want,” he said, looking up into her eyes. Animal lust was okay by him. Her corresponding smile made him forget that he was lying on a kitchen with his dick hanging out and that he had the stamina of a horny fourteen-year-old. “What was it that did it?" he said. "Was it the shirt?” He plucked at it to demonstrate.  
  
She gave him an enigmatic smile. “I think it was time,” she said, running her fingers through his hair and smoothing it back.  
  
“So it was the shirt,” he said, giving her a grin. She smothered it with another deep kiss.  
  
“I think it was how much you’re into this,” she said, kissing his forehead.  
  
“What’s ‘this?’” he said.  
  
“Being married to me. Settling down,” she said.  
  
“I love it,” he said. He wasn’t being sarcastic anymore.  
  
“I gathered,” she said, and smiled.  
  
“Skinner’s going to have a hard time peeling us away from this one,” he said. “I’m getting a taste for California.” He sat up and felt dizzy. He tucked himself back into his pants and zipped himself up. His clothes were a mess. “And a sandwich,” he said, looking back at Scully over his shoulder.  
  
“We’ll go out and get groceries later,” she said. “I’m not hungry for food right now.  
  
"Oh?" he said, heart picking up rhythm.  
  
She strode in front of him again. "Uh-uh," she said, and kissed him. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scully acts aloof and Mulder second guesses their sexual encounter.

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He followed Scully around the grocery store as high as a kite, only able to half comprehend her as she asked whether he preferred skim milk or whole milk or if he had enough energy after the day’s travel to Arcadia to help her make a massaman curry with yams and peanuts. He hadn’t smoked anything before the visit, hadn’t shot anything up. It felt like it, but the endorphins that enveloped him were all of Scully’s making.

Just an hour ago, she’d sidled up to him and put her hand down his pants, then finished by sucking him off.

Dana. Scully. Sucking _him_ off. Spooky Mulder.

No wonder he was in such a daze as he followed her from aisle to aisle. Even though the encounter had lasted only a couple of minutes, he kept replaying it in his mind, not seeing the bags of rice on the shelf in front of him as Scully discussed which varieties best suited curry. She was perfectly calm and composed, focused on the task at hand. Her cheeks didn’t keep flushing. Also, he was pretty sure she wasn’t struggling with the female equivalent of the erection that kept rising on him despite his best efforts.

He, on the other hand, had only two pressing concerns. One, would it happen again and how soon? Two, what was going through Scully’s head?

“What’s going through your head?” he said.

“Me?” she said, looking at him. “Well, you usually use jasmine for Thai, but right now basmati sounds good to me. What do you think?”

His high deflated a little and he wondered how she could be so cool and unemotional at a time like this. She’d just had her hands and mouth on his manhood sixty minutes ago.

“Whatever sounds good to you,” he said, forcing a smile and trying to sound encouraging. “I’m okay with whatever.”

“I don’t know, maybe jasmine would be better ...” Scully said, lifting up a bag and inspecting it.

He couldn’t remember when he started to fall in love with her, but what had happened earlier was preceded by at least five years of fantasy. Sometimes he thought he’d fallen for her within the first week they’d met, but the fantasies escalated in earnest after his father died. They were an escape. He needed to be comforted and distracted by a member of the opposite sex. His VHS collection was fine for what it was, but he could never picture those interchangeable girls fulfilling any kind of emotional need. So fantasies with Scully it was, every morning when he woke up and felt the pain of grief biting into him, every night when the loneliness and regret threatened to engulf him.

“I feel like I’m forgetting something,” Scully said, fifteen minutes later. He’d just helped her load the groceries into the trunk. His hand was on the steering wheel of the car as he prepared to back out of the parking space and a gold band on his ring finger caught the light from the setting sun.

“All we need is bread, cereal, milk, butter, and eggs,” he said.

“I will grant that those count as more than double what you usually have in your fridge, but I need a little bit more than that to cook with. What am I forgetting?”

Arcadia might have been idyllic, but it was a half-hour drive from the nearest supermarket so he grasped Scully’s fretting. Still, her question wasn’t the one he wanted her to ask. A better one might have been: Do you feel the same way for me, Mulder? Or maybe: What’s your favorite position?

“I know it’s going to come to me as soon as you pull into the driveway,” she said, sounded exasperated.

“That’s the way it always is,” he said, not really hearing the words. One item the movers had not brought yet was a couch and there was approximately one bed. If she didn’t want to discuss what happened right now, the conversation would surely have to occur before they crawled beneath the covers for their first night as a married couple.

“Mulder, stop!” Scully said, her hand flying to his arm. Mulder slammed on the brakes. “You’re supposed to stop if there’s a pedestrian in the crosswalk.” The man pushing his cart in the path of their vehicle gave him a dirty look. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Just thinking about—” He caught himself. “What happened to all those homeowners before us.” They’d mailed the sample of blood taken from the ceiling fan at the post office before driving to the store.

“I don’t know, I think the homeowners’ association might have scared them and they moved out of state under assumed names. That’s what I’m going on,” she said. She twirled her wedding ring between the thumb and pointer of her right hand. “Maybe there’s another explanation for the blood. Try to keep your eyes on the road, okay?”

Mulder, who still didn’t think the case was an X-File and definitely had not thought one jot about it since Dana Scully put her hand on his actual-factual penis, had nothing to say in response. Scully did not fail to notice this.

“No theory? You always have a theory,” she said.

“I’m still thinking about it,” he said. “I don’t know what to think. I mean, the blood?” He couldn’t come up with anything else to say, though, and the conversation tapered off. He was starting to fear that Scully had put on a normal face because she had immediately regretted what had happened and was now attempting to put it behind her as quickly as possible, despite having said earlier she thought it had been “time” to sexually accost him. He glanced over at her as he merged onto the interstate a few minutes later. The silence that always sat comfortably between them was strained. Her lipstick was immaculate. It had been smeared after she’d pulled away from kissing him earlier. She had leaned over him and kissed him long, with tongue. Then she teased him about his delight at playing husband and wife.

The thought cheered him up. She couldn’t be completely without feelings for him.

His excitement awoke when they pulled into their driveway ( _their_ driveway) and began unloading the groceries together. They were man and wife again. He handed Scully the keys and grabbed all of the bags, and told her to get the door. Maybe this was fantasy enough without the sexual stuff.

Half an hour later, though, as Scully peeled sweet potatoes and he sliced red peppers into thick, uneven ribbons, he knew with a dismal gut feeling that it wasn’t enough now that he’d tasted how good it could be. Just Scully’s hand ghosting over his as she pulled the cutting board toward her and chided him for not cutting the peppers into smaller strips made his heart beat faster. He knew what else that hand was capable now.

“Do you always cook like this at home?” he said. He thought that some good old-fashioned small talk might distract him from increasingly unchaste thoughts.

Scully looked doubtful. “You know this, you’ve been over for dinner,” she said. “The answer is yes and no. Depends on what kind of week we’ve had. If I’m tired, I heat up a Lean Cuisine.”

“You’ve never made Thai before,” he said.

Scully smiled. “Like I said, this is Melissa’s recipe. She couldn’t get enough curry after she came back from Thailand. I just wish I knew where to get kaffir lime leaves around here, but I guess plain lime juice is going to have to suffice.”

The pot of curry sauce beginning to bubble on the burner was sludgy and brownish, but it smelled incredible. His stomach rumbled. He wanted to ask if she thought it would be like this if they were married, going to the store and making dinner together on the weekends. It wasn’t quite blowjob good, but he liked it. A lot.

“Any further thoughts on the case?” Scully said, setting the peppers aside.

“Our neighbors are weird,” he said. “I’m sticking with your cult theory.”

“And you agree with me that the previous owners probably moved away and went into hiding, then?” she said.

“I guess so. I mean, I’m just not seeing that X-File element yet,” he said. “I like having a house, though.” What he didn’t tell her was that by house, he meant wife, domicile, tranquility.

“You could have a house if you wanted,” she said. She stirred the curry sauce. “We don’t have to spend the rest of our lives in apartments.”

“I don’t know about that,” he said. “They cost a lot. You gotta pay if the furnace goes out. And it’s a lot of space for me and the fish.” Also, _a house_ didn’t come with a pretend wife in the form of Scully. _This_ house did.

Scully shrugged.

“It’s not just the house,” he said, on impulse.

“Oh?” she said, staring at the sauce as she stirred it. The set of her shoulders seemed to suggest that she knew what he meant.

“No,” he said. “It’s hanging out with you without a lot of, you know ...” He trailed off, not knowing what he was trying to communicate. Mortal peril? Kersh breathing down their necks?

“Hmm?” she said, lifting a spoonful of curry sauce and blowing on it.

“It’s just nice. Like we’re taking a break from it all. I like spending time with you,” he said. His cheeks went slightly hot at the last confession.

“I like hanging out with you, too,” Scully said, tasting the curry. “Oh, this is good.” She put the spoon to his lips and tipped some curry in. He swallowed, feeling intoxicated with her nearness. At the same time, he was confused. Scully had gone all neutral on him and didn’t know what side she was on. The Mulder-is-good side? The Mulder-is-not-hook-up-material side? Maybe the revelation that his stamina was completely lacking had confirmed a preconceived notion that he was just a big, bumbling, horny oaf she wanted nothing to do with, after all.

“Can you stir while I cube the sweet potatoes?” she said.

He nodded, dumb.

They made the rest of the meal in a stiff, though not hostile, silence. He sensed from the way she kept worrying her lower lip that she was processing what they had done that afternoon. It was hard to believe that there was a flirtatious, sexually charged Scully underneath that exterior. He would not have believed it had he not had an exquisite pearl of a memory that he could not seem to stop fingering. “You’re big,” she’d said, when she’d seen his dick. And afterwards, “I think I did this because of how much you’re into being married to me.” He wanted to go lie down in bed and prod the memory a little more until he had another supernova orgasm.

When Scully announced that the curry was done, his libido made a temporary exit as he sat down at the table and filled his stomach with her incredible cooking.

“You’re an amazing cook,” he said.

“ _Melissa_ was an amazing cook,” she said, smiling as she ate a mouthful of curry.

“Too modest. I’ve eaten your food before,” he said. He took another bite. “You're a good cook. Deal with it.”

The silence returned, but a little less stiff. He mopped up his first and second helping of curry with some readymade naan that Scully had bought in the grocery bakery. He could see them heading home to his place from a long day at the Headquarters and Scully teaching him how to cook. She’d have a glass of wine with the meal, he’d have a cold bottle of beer, and after they had relaxed on the couch watching an hour or two of basketball, he’d take her to bed and ravish her.

Once they had finished eating, he cleared the plates, rinsed them, and set them in the dishwasher. Scully wrapped some aluminum foil around the pot of curry and slid it into the fridge, saying, “Let’s find out tomorrow if they send some Tupperware with us.” Towers of boxes still sat untouched in the living room. On the drive to Arcadia Scully had expressed reluctance to open them lest the case be solved in a couple days, but he’d persuaded her that not unpacking them would look suspicious to their prying neighbors. Now that he’d observed for himself how peculiarly fastidious they were, he knew he’d made the correct call.

“What now?” he said.

Scully looked at him as if the answer was obvious. “I’m going to bed.”

“It’s nine o’clock,” he said.

“Yes, and we were both up at five this morning, remember?” she said. “I was going to shower and do some reading and pass out. I’d like to get up early tomorrow and start digging into the case.”

“Okay,” he said. His frustration was starting to return.

“What were you planning to do?” she said.

“Watch TV. Go to bed, I guess.”

“Okay,” she said. She walked away.

Mulder found that the TV wasn’t plugged in yet nor the cable set up. The channels coming through the antennae consisted of the local news station, Court TV, and an infomercial channel. He opened the nearest box thinking he might as well get a headstart on the unpacking. He was greeted by a bunch of knick-knacks meant to add to the plausibility of their upper middle-class lifestyle, but he had no idea where to put any of them and soon closed the flaps. The next box he tried contained framed photographs of Scully and him together. He smiled. That had been a fun afternoon last week. They’d changed outfits six or seven times, and a hairdresser and makeup artist hired by the Bureau especially for the occasion altered their hair and faces for each outfit to make it look like their relationship had a five-year history. The money and time the Bureau had put into this case so that they could solve it astonished him. And the thought of how livid Kersh would be if he found out that all they’d done today was fool around like teenagers and make dinner gave him a deep satisfaction.

He might as well bounce some theories off of Scully. He walked into the bedroom where her laptop was open on a small kitchen table that didn’t quite belong there. Whoever had coordinated the assignment accidentally doubled up on kitchen sets. The bed distracted him when he spotted it, though. It was a queen. They could get close on a queen.

Scully emerged from the bathroom and he spun around. “Whoever taught you how to squeeze a tube of toothpaste?” she said. She was wearing a white robe and a terry-cloth headband.

“Oh, we’re at that point in our marriage already?”

“Funny,” she said, rolling her eyes and disappearing back into the bathroom.

“What if the couples before us were murdered?” he said, to steer the topic away from his bad habits.

“Third warning,” Scully said, from within the bathroom. “Toilet seat.” The lid slammed.  
  
“Think about it. The Bureau hasn’t been able to find any trace of them.”

Scully stepped out of the bathroom with her face covered in a mint green mask and he recoiled in mock horror with an “ooh!”, hoping to make her laugh.

Scully pretended not to hear him. “What would be the motive?” She tossed his sweatshirt at him, not changing expression.

“Compulsive neatness or a lack thereof. Have you noticed how everybody around here is obsessed with the neighborhood rules and the CC&Rs?” he said. “You know what? You fit in really well here.” He was hoping to needle her in jumping his bones.

“And you don't?” she said.

“Anyway, tomorrow I got a surefire way of testing out my theory,” he said. A plastic lawn flamingo in one of the bigger boxes had caught his eye. It would have been anodyne in almost any other neighborhood, but in Arcadia he had a feeling that it would lead to a riot. He patted the sheets with a hand and waggled his eyebrows at her. Scully merely raised hers. “Come on, Laura,” he said. “You know we’re married now.”

“Scully, Mulder,” she corrected him. “Good night.”

He rose, defeat washing over him. “The thrill is gone,” he grumbled. “G’night, Scully.” He brushed past her. Where he was retreating, he didn’t know yet. Maybe the Bureau had packed sleeping bags.

“Wait,” Scully said behind him.

“Yes?” He was past disguising his annoyance.

“What if—” She paused and sighed. “What if what I did earlier was really, really stupid?” A cautious note was in her voice.

“What do you mean?” he said.

“Uh, for one, it wasn’t professional ...”

“Cut the crap, I don’t care about that,” he said. He was beginning to feel desperate.

“What if I do?” she said, planting her hands on her hips.

“Okay,” he said. He tried to master his emotions and see the situation from her perspective. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”

Scully sighed and looked away for a moment. “Alright, it’s not really that,” she said. “We all know who’s dating at the Bureau. It’s not a secret. I just feel like maybe I might have fucked up a really good friendship.” She bit her bottom lip.

“You haven’t,” he said. She had to know that nothing could ever make him stop adoring her.

“You don’t know that yet,” she said. “What happens when we go home?”

Mulder shrugged. “I don’t know what happens. We figure it out. We move past it. We’ve been through worse,” he said, trying to bring her over to his point of view.

“It’s not working with you that bothers me if it doesn’t work out. That doesn’t bother me. It’s, what if you’re not my best friend anymore?” she said. Her voice had grown just a fraction quieter.

“I’m your best friend?” he said. He knew it, of course, but hearing her say it made it true when it hadn’t quite been when it was all just in his own head. He glowed with the knowledge. He loved her.

“Yes,” she said. “Am I yours?”

“Of course you are.” He stood and walked over to where she stood, enfolding her in a hug.

After a few pauses, Scully spoke, voice muffled against his chest. “I was worried that I might have pushed you into it, too.”

“You thought that you what?” he said, pulling her back by the shoulders so she could see how incredulous he was.

Her cheeks were pink. “It’s been a long time since I’ve done anything like that. I mean a _long_ time. Afterwards, in the car, you got quiet and I started to think I’d pressured you and you hadn’t wanted to do it,” she said.

Mulder laughed and looked her full in the face. “Scully, I got quiet because you blew my fucking mind! All this time I’ve been thinking this you-and-me thing was in my head and then all of a sudden, whoa. This thing I’ve been dreaming about is not a dream.”

She laughed. “Really? You’re not just bullshitting me?”

“I thought _you_ were regretting it,” he said, “since I finished so fast. And then I thought I could have been reading into it, like sometimes a blowjob is just a blowjob.”

Scully giggled as he pulled her in for another hug. “Freud said that?”

“Yes,” he said with confidence, into her hair. “I went to Oxford.”

“I have to say, that’s one of your more interesting theories. Agent Scully Is Just Here for the Blowjobs,” she said.

“Well I am irresistible,” he said.

“You’d be more irresistible if you didn’t wear shoes to bed,” she said.

He looked down at his shoes, then back at her. “Are you trying to get me out of my clothes, Mrs. Petrie?”

“No,” she said. She looked up at him and smirked. “If I wanted to get you out of your clothes, I’d just do this.” She grabbed the hem of his shirt and hauled it over his head before he had any time to decide to be anything other than obedient.

“Mrs. Petrie,” he said in a mock-scandalized tone, cocking an eyebrow.

“No more role-playing on the first date, please,” she said. “Scully will do just fine.” She slid her hands up his chest and kissed him. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt so happy as the limitless possibilities stretched before him. She was going to let him have her. He growled at the thought and returned the kiss, pushing his tongue into her mouth.

“Oh,” she said. Her surprise made his dick stir.

His arms encircled her tighter and her tongue met his, hesitant. When both of her thumbs stroked over his nipples, he realized how fast he was going to lose it tonight. “Will you promise me something right now?” he said, pulling back.

Scully’s pupils were dilated, but her lips quirked the same. “What?”

“We have to at least do this nine more times,” he said.

She laughed. “Why’s that?” She moved her thumbs again and the nails caught his nipples, filling him with a sensation that was on the edge of pain and pleasure. He shoved his hips at her and groaned.

“Because I am going to last a pathetic amount of time and it’s only fair that I give you warning,” he said.

“I promise we can keep doing this until you make it past the one-minute mark,” she said.

“Two minutes at least,” he said, breathless. “Promise.”

“Got a stopwatch?”

“You’ll know,” he said, backing her to the bed.

“Wait a minute,” she said, pushing him away. “I’m still wearing my mask.”

“I like it like that,” he said.

“Let me rinse. It’ll take two seconds,” she said, grinning.

Mulder sat on the edge of the bed and wiped a finger across the green residue she’d left on his chin. When Scully didn’t emerge in the promised two seconds, he gave himself a quick adjustment. As much as he’d joked about his stamina, it didn’t bode well that he was already this hard. A few moments later, Scully flicked off the bathroom light and stepped out. She’d gotten rid of the avocado mask, headband, and robe. She was dressed in an oversized nightshirt with a scallop of lace at the collar. It hit her mid-thigh, and her thighs were bare.

“C’mere,” he said, suddenly raw with need.

“You’re forgetting something,” she said, sauntering over. He grabbed for her. “Shoes,” she said, out of his reach.

As he bent down trying to shuck them off without undoing the laces, he felt Scully arrange herself on the bed behind him. He stood up and nudged her over once he’d wrestled his feet out of his sneakers. He was undecided about which part of her he wanted to touch most, but he settled on her hair. Although he’d buried his nose in it and stroked it before on those rare occasions Scully needed comfort, he’d never had the full liberty to thread a hand through it like he was doing now. He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead near her hairline.

“You’re beautiful,” he said.

“Takes one to know one,” she said, cupping his jaw. She brought her face close and kissed him, no tongue but plenty of wet, warm mouth. His tongue sought hers and he seized a handful of her hair near the roots, gentle, but firm enough to let her know how much he wanted her. She made a frail sound in the back of her throat and he flared with need. He swung himself on top of her and parted her legs with a press of his right knee against her inner thigh. She opened them for him and pulled him close, her pelvis meeting his.

“Shit,” he said, as their lower halves connected. He thrust against her, unable to hold back. In response, Scully pressed her tongue against his and grabbed the back of his neck with both hands, bringing their mouths closer. He panted and thrust again. God, it was so good. He tried it for a third time. So fucking good. “So fucking good,” he said in her ear, breaking away from her mouth momentarily. She moaned, bucking her hips.

He put a hand on her thigh and snaked it upward, encountering the cotton barrier of her underwear. That could wait. He stopped at the soft curve where her waist met her hipbone and ran his hand down it. Scully’s hand were roaming around his chest and making uneven circles, fingers catching his nipples now and again. Mulder anchored a hand on her hip and thrust, the angle truer this time. Another moan from Scully. He experimented with two quick thrusts in succession and won another one. Before he could stop himself, he was rutting uncontrolled against her. Her right hand slid down his back and beneath his jeans and boxers. Her hand on his ass urged him to go faster. Unbelievable, he thought, as he clutched her hip, that such a tiny woman could be so curvy. She was a Venus de Milo in miniature, a smart sexy little Venus de Milo.

“But with both her arms,” he said.

“Hmm?” said Scully, murmuring the question in his ear.

“Nothing.” He groped further up her torso and struck her ribcage. That wasn’t what he was after though. “Can I?” he said.

“You don’t have to ask,” she said, smiling. “I’ll let you know if it’s not okay.”

“Just wanna be a good husband,” he said. His roving hand found its quarry. He’d never met a breast he didn’t like, but Scully’s seemed to be the exact replica of the several years’ worth of his secret fantasies. It fit perfectly in his hand, like a baseball in a mitt—not that she would in any way appreciate her anatomy being compared to sports equipment. There was also some heft to it; it was not as pert as the smallness would have suggested. “Scully,” was all that he could manage, afraid that he was never going to be able to stop squeezing long enough for her to bare her entire chest. But she anticipated his next move for him and sat up halfway to remove her nightgown. He scrambled back up to his knees to give her room. When she’d deposited the nightgown on the floor, she looked up at him with almost a shy expression.

There she was. Red hair, white skin, breasts that he wouldn’t hesitate to kill a man for. Two men, even. More if it came down to it.

“How about,” she said, reaching for the button of his jeans, “we take these off?”

“Yeah,” he said. He knew where his blood supply had gone and it was not to his brain, which no longer seemed to recall words longer than five letters. He unzipped his jeans and wriggled out of them as Scully watched, evidently as interested in his body as he was in hers. When the jeans had joined the nightgown, Scully stretched out a hand and ran it from his sternum to his stomach. His hands were not as polite. He cupped her breasts and sank his cheek in between them, completely overwhelmed with pleasure. Scully brushed a hand through his hair and down the back of his neck.

After a few moments, he loosed his grip on her left breast long enough to shift his head and draw her nipple into his mouth. Scully gasped and he sucked harder, determined to employ all the tricks in his sexual magician’s bag, which had long been in disuse. His fingers on her right breast pinched, rubbed, rolled, maintaining a firm touch.

Scully’s hands fanned across his back as he sucked her. With the passing moments, he was aware of her hands returning to his chest and making a downward path. His pulse picked up speed. Scully’s fingers were in the elastic of his boxers now. She drew the cloth down and a current of cool air met his hard heat. He moaned and withdrew from her nipple.

“Cat got your tongue?” Scully said.

“Cat’s got something,” he said, his eyelids closing involuntarily when she wrapped her hand around his dick.

She stroked him as he acquainted his mouth with her right breast. He was nothing if not a total glutton for pleasure, so as he worked on her breast he moved down to her pussy. Cupping it through her underwear and extending his middle finger down to her vagina, he could feel that she was ready to accommodate him. He shifted the cotton aside and, yes, she was very ready. He slid his finger inside her and she moaned.

“Fuck,” he said, to her nipple. “So good. So fucking good.” His gluttony blossomed, a Fibonacci sequence of the most salacious petals. “Can I?” he said, looking at her until she opened her eyes to meet his.

“What?” she said. Her hand on his dick was slow and teasing. “Fuck me?”

A primal noise lodged in his throat. “No,” he said. “I mean, not yet. I will. I want to. Can I ...?” He looked down where his finger was slipped into her.

“Yes, but don’t take too long,” she said, dotting kisses in his hair. “I don’t think I can wait.” She was at once so Scully when she said this and so not. For as well as you might know another person, the chances of seeing them paralytic with want was remote, even though almost everyone in the world was chasing moments like these, in their thoughts, in their actions. Yet he was enjoying the privilege of seeing the person he desired above all others in that state ... He was one lucky motherfucker, in short.

“I just want to taste you,” he said, mouth watering.

Scully murmured and shifted her hips, which buried his finger deeper within her. She let go of his penis and he moved away from her breasts, turning his attention to her underwear. With a here-goes-nothing breath to embolden him, he glided it down her hips, down her legs, and over her toes. He knew Scully was a natural redhead because her roots never betrayed any other color, but knowing and believing were two different things. He was a believer now. Oh fuck yes. He dove in. Ten thousand times fuck yes.

The tang of her was scarcely to be believed. He tried three different levels of firmness, soft, medium, hard. He tried three different speeds, slow, moderate, fast. He explored exterior and interior. She seemed to like it all. Her hands curled over his deltoids and clenched. He sneaked a glance and her head was tossed back, throat exposed. If their nuptial consummation stretched beyond tonight, he was going to return to this exact spot and make her come again and again and again. He had just found a workable rhythm when she tugged at him and scooted her hips out of reach.

“Enough,” she said, urging him to move up. He obeyed and wiped his mouth with the back of a hand. “I want you to fuck me. Now.”

In a daze, he positioned himself as Scully ate wolflike at the side of his neck. He looked down: her breasts, the orange curls, his dick ready against her. “What are you waiting for?” she said, lifting an eyebrow and smiling.

He pushed in.

It was fortunate that Scully wasn’t a mind-reader because she’d scold him this wasn’t what Handel wrote his Hallelujah chorus for, Handel actually wrote it as a reflection on—

Jesus. He was fucking her. He was fucking her so hard. He should have been taking it slow, he should have been rationing himself, he should have been more considerate of Scully, but he was in completely primitive way. Judging by the way Scully’s nails were scrabbling against his back, he guessed that she was there too. “Good?” he said.

She nodded, trying to drag him deeper into her. “Yes. Yes.”

“Fuck,” he said. “Fuck, you’re so good. So good, Scully. So fucking good.”

“Harder,” she said, and couldn’t have been a prettier, more musical sound than if Handel himself had written it.

He gave her harder. He gave her faster. But he couldn’t give her longer. “I’m not going to be able to hold back much longer,” he said. He tried a steadier, slower stroke. “I didn’t ask. Are you on anything?”

“Birth control?” she said. “No. Pull out when you’re ready. You can ...” She gestured at her stomach.

He kissed her forehead, not quite ready for the encounter to conclude, and slowed his pace even further. He stopped for a few beats and rolled his hips, and Scully liked it. “Can you come from this?” he said.

She bit off a moan and shook her head. “No. But it still feels good and I want you to keep going. I don’t care if I don’t come.”

He pulled his hips back and pushed into her again. “You’ll let me try sometime though, right? I want you to feel good.”

She giggled. “I do feel good. We wouldn’t be right here if I didn’t.” She stroked his hair. “I’m going to need you to go harder, though.”

“Ugh, Scully,” he said. The primitive part of him didn’t need any encouragement. He pulled back and slammed into her. “Like that?” he said, growling.

She nodded, lifting her hips for more. It was too much and he broke with one, two, three, four, five more hard, fast strokes. He pulled out of her just in time to clutch himself and finish on her stomach. Nothing mattered in that moment except how gorgeous she was and how she was his at last. When he had spent himself, he leaned forward for a long, wet kiss. “You’re amazing. You’re so amazing,” he said.

“You’re pretty good too,” Scully said, smiling.

He scrambled aside for a moment to avail himself of the box of tissues on their bedside table. He mopped Scully off the best he could before taking care of himself. When they were as clean as could reasonably be expected, he laid on his side and pulled her close to him, chin resting on the crown of her head. The kitchen blowjob combined with the sex reassured him, but he had to hear her say it for himself.

“So you really like me?”

Scully snorted. Her mood seemed a lot lighter than it had been an hour ago. Lighter than it had seemed in a long time, in fact. “Are you kidding?”

“Uh-uh,” he said.

She wiggled her butt more firmly into his groin and pressed the backs of her knees to his. “Mulder, it’s the most obvious thing in the world.”

“I wasn’t sure until this morning,” he said.

“ _I_ wasn’t sure until this morning,” she said.

“What made you do it?” he said.

“I had a hunch,” she said. He could hear the smile in her voice.

“What tipped you off?”

“The way you were hugging me when we were meeting the neighbors,” she said. “You wouldn’t quit when we got inside. It was the jokes about the house and the honeymoon tape. I mean, I didn’t know for sure, but I thought I’d play the hunch.”

“Why now?” he said. He wanted to know all her secret thoughts, particularly the ones that involved them.

“Like I told you earlier, it seemed like it was time,” she said. “I was a little nervous, but I had a feeling you’d be good in bed. Let’s say my lizard brain got the better of me when you were sitting on the counter wearing that awful pink shirt.”

“You have a lizard brain?” he said. The news delighted him.

“Don’t act so shocked,” she said, tugging on one of his fingers to chasten him.

“Was I good?” he said.

“Hmm,” said Scully, her voice turning analytical. “I think you lasted about four minutes instead of one, so ...”

“So I get a second shot?” he said. Their fingers interlaced and he caressed her hand with a thumb.

“Depends on how much of an X-File this case turns out to be,” she said. “But I bet we could find some time.”

He couldn’t remember the last time he felt happier. “And you’ll let me play house with you?”

Scully laughed. “As long as you remember to put the toilet seat down.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is not 100% canon since I assigned the bedroom scene to Mulder and Scully's first day in Arcadia, not their second. I shifted the details around to make the story work, if you could call this smutburger a story!

**Author's Note:**

> I'm in the middle of season six and wrote this quickly as a distraction from Election 2018. If you like it, please let me know. I'll consider a sequel if so.


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